


Worst Hour of Every Week

by argylemikewheeler



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, If You Can Believe it, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, KINDA sappy like as much as it can be for them, M/M, Theo brings up being extremely depressed and suicidal for one brief second, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argylemikewheeler/pseuds/argylemikewheeler
Summary: Theo doesn't know why in God's name he's in therapy, but he somehow is. He's there once every week with Boris so they can try and lift the sealed lid on their repression. For Boris, it's his traumatic childhood. For Theo, it's the internalized homophobia that makes him unable to say that he's in a very happy and loving relationship with his best friend-- despite the fact that he brings Boris to every appointment for support.He's so in love why does he need to SAY it?[Based on fic prompt list where an anon requested both humming/singing +  pet names!]
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 4
Kudos: 147





	Worst Hour of Every Week

**Author's Note:**

> listen: you and i both know these two idiots would never TOUCH therapy but we tried something new with this fic. they're better than they were when the book ends. it's been a few years and theo can at least look his own homosexuality in the eyes-- he just doesn't want anyone else too.

It wasn’t technically couple’s therapy.

Dr. Cartrite-- _Allison_ , as she insisted, attempting to be personable-- had the audacity to call Theo and Boris _co-dependent_. Against her “better judgement”, both parties were unfortunately necessary to be present during the other’s sessions in order to access buried parts of their childhoods-- or just to have _someone_ remember, in Theo’s case. He never remembered laying out in the street, drunk and suicidal, and Boris was the only one able to verify that Theo _did_ have such a dark history after his mother died. To verify why in God’s name Theo was even there.

The week before, Boris had talked about his father. Theo felt sick the entire time, only able to sit beside him and listen to the things Boris endured, even when they knew each other. What was on the other side of Boris’s life when he went back to his house in their neighborhood. Boris’s sessions were always very serious; Boris was able to access that part of his life-- the guilt, the shame, the brutality-- easily, but with an “inappropriate” nonchalance, as Allison liked to protest.

Theo’s sessions, on the other hand, were very defensive. He hated Allison, if he was being honest. She thought she knew more about Theo despite his purposeful attempts to never answer her questions directly. Her notepad was always jam-packed and scratched after an hour of interrogating him.

Her office was clean and beige. The ceiling was low and the warm lamp lighting-- because she said overhead lighting was too clinical-- made quick work of making everything feel close. Some days the room felt cozy, others it felt suffocating. The abstract, most definitely homemade, “art” did little to distract Theo from the walls framing him into the worst hour of his week. Whenever he tried to find a new point in the room to stare at, he was brought back to the horrible brush strokes of what looked to be a farmhouse and meadow landscape. Or it might have been an impressionist painting for the general feeling of boredom.

Theo would have believed that too.

“Okay, so,” Allison adjusted her chair and clicked her pen twice. She was going to need it. “Boris, today’s session is going to be asking Theo a lot of questions, if that’s alright. I need you to remain engaged and practice active listening.” Another reason Theo hated Allison was that she took Boris’s accent to mean he was inept in some way; she constantly patronized him and belittled his intelligence.

“Uh, okay.” Boris blinked. “Do not understand those words exactly together, but yes. Okay.”

“You listen just fine.” Theo said quietly, moving to rest his elbow on the arm of Boris’s chair. Boris rested his hands in his lap, picking the dirt out from under his fingernails. “It’s how you listen when you aren’t being a stubborn piece of shit.”

“Ah! _Willing_ listening.” Boris nodded, gently slapping his knees and bouncing his legs. “Can do that for Potter. Can do that, just say so!”

“Yeah, you got it, Boris.” Theo smiled, being sickly sweet if only to undermine Allison’s overbearing, maternal commentary.

“See, wait, I want to stop here for a moment.” Allison held up her hand. Theo clenched his jaw and sighed. “Have you ever noticed that you only call Boris by his first name?”

“Do you want me to call him by his _last_ name? What am I-- a football coach?” Theo quipped. “ _‘Good job, Pavlikovsky! See you in the kitchen!’_ That’s fucking stupid.”

Allison nodded, waiting for Theo to be finished. She had such (reluctantly) admirable patience-- which explained the high rate per hour. “He calls you ‘Potter’. That’s a pet name-- it’s sweet.”

“It’s making fun of me.” Theo deadpanned. “The first time we met he called me ‘Potter’ because of my glasses. He’s mocking me-- well, not anymore. I kind of got used to it, but initially, it’s because he was being an asshole.”

Actually, the nickname was the first brush with normalcy Theo had had since moving to Las Vegas. No one dared to poke so quickly and harshly at the overly sensitive and grieving new kid. But Boris plopped down beside him and insulted his appearance with such charming gusto, Theo knew Boris was the only one _truly_ looking at him. For the first time in his life, maybe.

“Boris, do you think of the name that way?” Allison held her hands out to him. She was copying a motion she’d seen Theo do to Boris every time he wanted a full, honest answer-- without any filter or language preference. It was _their_ movement.

“No. Is just my name for Potter. Everyone calls him _T-eo_ … Ack, Fyodor! But, Potter is what I have called him. How we meet first time and back in New York, as ships pass! I call out ‘ _Potter!’_ and he knows it is me. Always.” Boris nodded when he was finished, not even smiling. It was just the truth; no romance or flowery additions necessary. Theo just _was_ ‘Potter’ for Boris, the same way Boris just _was_ (it) for Theo.

“See, Theo? See that individualization? That’s a move of openness and vulnerability. One you are yet to give back to Boris; I was thinking, for this session, you could try thinking of a new word to call Boris-- just for fun! To practice being vulnerable like that.”

“You want me to call him _names_?”

“Pet names. You know: sweetheart, honey, pookie--”

“Pookie?” Theo repeated with a snort. “Yeah, let me just sound like a kindergarten teacher while I’m in bed with my-- my, uh...” Theo stalled, his mouth going dry.

Boris was the rest of Theo’s life, but there wasn’t a name for that.

“Think on it.” Allison said, folding her hands back into her lap. Her pen rested between her thumb and middle finger, braced under her forefinger. She cleared her throat and Boris used the shuffle to clear the chuckle out of his own throat. He nudged Theo’s arm on the chair, hiding his smile as he looked down at his nails again.

Theo held back a laugh of his own, _joy_ of his own, for making Boris laugh. It was his goal every week, realistically. After all the shit Boris relived in that room-- down to the blacked out moments where Boris had no visual memories but deep, stomach-curdled _feelings_ of what was happening to him-- he deserved to think of the room as a place he could also find laughter.

“So, for this session, Theo, I want to talk about your mother.”

The laughter stopped.

“Again? Listen, I’ve done all the cognitive interviews. I _don’t_ remember what painting I was in front of when the bomb went off. I was _thirteen_.”

“No. No. Today I want to go back to when she was alive. Your relationship before the bomb-- before Boris!”

“Me?”

“We’re _listening_ today, Boris.”

“You’re fine, Boris.” Theo said. “You’re fine… _Honey_.” Theo felt a slickness far thicker than honey stick at the back of his throat, nearly making him gag.

“You and your mother were close, we know that.” Allison spoke with far too much confidence. Theo crossed his legs and flexed his ankle slowly. “I want to know if your mother _knew_. If you ever told her you were gay.”

“I was what?” Theo tried to play Allison’s accusation off, but having just crossed his legs he felt like he was lying with his cards facing outward.

“I’m sorry-- we can pick a different label: did you ever tell your mother you were queer?”

“Oh-- Oh my god that’s worse.” Theo muttered, shifting in his chair. He grabbed the arms to hoist himself up and pressed his spine against the vinyl backing. He waited for his bones to crack-- something to tell him to stop.

“Identifying your sexuality makes you uncomfortable.” It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t see how this is relevant.”

“Mister Decker,” She said. She only used his last name when she was trying to assert her observations as a _doctor_ and not just their _level-headed friend with some degrees on the wall_. “If I may be so blunt,”

“You’re going to be anyway.”

“Potter, she is being nice.”

“She’s not calling _you_ gay!”

“Potter, that is not question we have here. She is not really _asking_.”

“Boris is right.” Allison said with a smile. “You’re here with your husband. We know that you are… not heterosexual.”

“Wait-- _husband_?” Theo looked down at his hands, flipping them over. He leaned over and stared at Boris’s. “Did we get married? I don’t remember that. Must’ve blacked out again or something.”

“He’s your male partner, your common-law husband-- boyfriend seems far too casual for the way you two are--”

“Oh, so now you are going to tell me what is and isn’t casual in my relationships.”

“I’m trying to not let you dismiss what you have with Boris-- which has been a common theme in all of our sessions so far--”

“Don’t you dare try and tell me what I am or am not dismissing.” Theo tightened his jaw and flexed his ankle again. “Thank you.”

The pen in Allison’s hand rolled between her fingers, looking like she had something in the queue to write, but she held off. She crossed her own legs and mirrored Theo, fixing a smile back on her face. “Let’s get back to your mother. Why did you never tell her… about how you were feeling?”

“I was thirteen.” Theo said flatly.

“Children can’t be gay?” She posed. Her voice hitched higher, acting proud she put Theo's logic in check. He knew they could be.

“I wasn’t thinking about that when I was younger.” Theo gritted. Theo truly wasn’t. He just thought he hated every boy at school because they were Neanderthals that had poor taste in books and movies. “I didn’t know when she was alive.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Are you deaf?”

“Theodore.”

“ _Allison_.”

“Potter, she is just asking.” Much like watching a pot of water about to boil over, Boris continued to cut in at just the right moment: before Theo became belligerent and all conversation became useless, petty fighting. “Miss not telling my mother things all the time. Is okay.”

“But I’m not upset about that, Bor-- _Sweetheart_.”

“Who was the first person you told you were… the way you are.”

The vague swerving around Theo’s identity felt less and less like Allison was giving Theo room to establish himself, and more like she was avoiding the disgust she held for it. Theo just wished she’d say it-- just call him the slur sliding around between her molars, ready to shoot up from the back of her throat and into his face.

“Uh,” Theo itched the side of his nose, bumping his glasses. “I'm sitting next to him.”

Boris waved enthusiastically. Theo let himself smile enough for Allison to see.

“Oh! Boris! Great. What did you say? How did it come about?”

“What did I _say_?” 

There had been no words-- Theo didn’t have them back then. Still didn’t, but he at least knew the ones close enough to articulate it to outsiders. Usually it involved Theo making a strange, in-between gesture to Boris, who smiled and placed his arm around Theo’s shoulders as he continued his own introduction to the strangers. Back then though, Theo didn’t have anything prepared except to gesture between himself and Boris, reaching out to grab his shirt and bring their bodies closer. The only words he had were the sighs of relief from feeling another warm body like his own wrapped tightly around him, and the willingness to do so.

Theo had never told Boris he was gay. Theo had just gotten Boris to understand that the future of his life, as he saw it, rested in his arms, his chest, his mouth, his bed.

“Potter did not say anything to me.” Boris said, looking at Theo with furrowed eyebrows.

“Boris, we’re _listening_ , remember.” Allison sounded like she should’ve given Boris a time-out. Theo loosened his tie, feeling heat flare up to his face at her tone.

“He’s right though. I didn’t. I never told him _anything_. He figured it out. But he was the first to know.” Theo looked at Boris, feeling like he was sitting in his empty pool all over again. Boris smiled and, in a moment of overwhelming adolescent nostalgia, Theo missed Boris’s old teeth. His old crooked smile. The one that was always accidentally rough-- _clumsy_ more rather-- against his own, catching Theo’s lips and clattering against his teeth.

“Theo, why don’t you tell Boris now?”

“What?” Theo gave her a chance to reconsider.

“I want you to tell Boris who you are.” Allison lifted her pen but kept her eyes fixed on Theo.

“He already knows. I don’t need to do this in front of you.”

“Theo, have you ever told anyone you were gay?” She avoided obscurity, leaving Theo no choice.

“Well, no. Not how _you_ think I--”

“Then I think you should try it.”

“No.”

“Theo, you know this doesn’t work if you don’t participate.” Allison wrote something with long, swift movements across her page. The notes went nowhere—they weren’t in a program or anything that was requiring their therapy—but the thought of Allison having self-gratifying notes about Theo’s gridlocked growth _always_ got him to budge. Just a little bit.

“How do you want me to say it?” Theo pursed his lips, waiting for Allison to look up from her page again. “You want me to cry? Get a rainbow banner? Do a song and _fucking_ dance--”

“Potter.” Boris grabbed Theo’s wrist. It was a careful move, one that said more about Boris than it truly did about Theo.

_Open and vulnerable._

“Fine.” Theo shifted in his chair, angling more toward Boris. “Fine, I’ll do your goddamn exercise.”

Boris was in a black, thinly woven cotton sweater-- even though it was July-- and black jeans that Theo was convinced were a size too small, but that wasn’t actually possible for Boris. He hadn’t dressed for the occasion, as Theo was sure he wouldn’t, but Theo could see the small hints of comfort in his choice of untucked shirt with no belt, favorite boots with laces tucked in the top, and leather bracelet pulled over the sleeve of his sweater to easily be twisted. His hair had never been so short, sitting just by the bottom of his ears.

Theo remembered telling Boris he was handsome that morning. It had slipped out so casually, so easily. Theo almost felt free.

“Boris, as I’m sure you are _already_ aware, I am a _huge_ fucking f--”

“Mister Decker, please take this seriously.”

“Let me work up to it, alright? I’m twenty-fucking-five and I’ve never said--” Theo ducked his head and stared at his tie. He smoothed it four times, ignoring that it hadn’t moved; he’d clipped it to his shirt that morning. “Boris, as I’m sure you know, I--”

Boris blinked at Theo, giving the same blank signal of a willing and innocent eagerness from years ago. It felt like another hand on his chest, on his face, in his hair. Why did Theo have to use any words at all?

He was what he was, but Boris was the only one who ever made him feel like it was worth living with. Accepting, maybe, on the days Theo didn’t feel like his skin was a thick layer of newspaper and glue-- a disguise anyone could pick up and read.

“Boris… Truth is, I-- I’m,” He needed time to form the words to his tongue. But he knew he didn’t have _that_ kind of time. “I’m… Well, I’ve been… _gay_ this whole time.”

“No!” Boris pretended to gasp, placing a hand over his chest. Theo spit out a laugh, feeling a burning wetness in his nose and a quiver starting in his chin.

It truly was ridiculous to tell Theo’s… _person_ his sexuality. Boris already knew it. He knew everything.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You would’ve never guessed, right?” Theo sniffled and cleared his throat. He paused, looking at Boris’s hand still on his arm. The touch kept the rest of the room at bay. Theo barely even noticed the walls-- or the art. “My mom never did. She never figured it out. At least I don’t think so. If she did… I don’t know, I think she ignored it. Which is stupid to carry around because… because I’ll never know but,” Theo took a moment to study Boris’s face. He was glad for his new smile; it meant the worst was over. They’d grown up and out of that danger. “part of me is afraid that even if she _had_ lived, I’d have to lose her again over this. Something _else_ I have no control over but could never hurt me the way it’d hurt her… I guess I don’t want to be the second bomb. To anyone.”

Boris nodded and Theo knew part of his emotions were lost to him. He didn’t need to fully understand, Theo just wanted Boris to know that there was something cracked and fragile _there_ to be stepped around. Theo could glue it all on his own.

“Boris, is there anything you want to say to Theo?”

“No.”

“Boris, Theo was just very honest with you. A response could be very comforting, so he knows you were listening.”

“I was looking right at him.” Boris said matter-of-factly. “He knows I listen. Right, Potter? Know I’m listening?”

“Don’t ask leading questions, Boris.” Allison opened her hands again and motioned toward Theo.

Theo hated thinking anyone other than Boris was looking at him in that moment.

“Know who you are, Potter. Am happy to hear you say it-- tell me yourself. But I know. Have not been holding out on me. No secrets between us, none! Always best friends.”

“Good, good! That was great, Boris. And, Theo, thank you for being so honest with us. That felt good, right?”

“I feel like I swallowed a knife.” Theo muttered. The clock was hanging over his head and he resisted the conspicuous move to turn and stare at it. “But, please, let’s call that _good_.”

“The next part of the session will help that. It’s going to be fun.”

“Fun? _Here_? I somehow don’t believe that.”

“We’re going to explore some more vulnerability and openness-- like with the names. I want to ask you some questions about Boris!” Allison looked between the two of them and Theo suddenly felt like part of his disguise had been pealed back-- ripped off-- and left him exposed. A gaping hole that could start gushing blood at any moment.

“What about him.”

“I want you to talk about him. Be open. Your resistance to acknowledge your sexuality, I think, I has left parts of your relationship guarded and unexplored. I think Boris might like to know he’s loved.”

“He knows that.” Theo said shortly.

“We don’t speak for each other, remember?”

It was the _dumbest_ rule Allison insisted on having. If anyone could speak over and for each other, it was the two of them. Boris had the vocabulary of six languages to try and cut through the fog Theo constantly felt coiling around his singular set.

“Boris, do you feel you are guessing at Theo’s feelings?”

“No. Potter tells me lots of things. Does not always needs words though. He is not hard man to understand-- very simple to read, is like, uh… what is word?”

“Book?” Allison offered; her voice so sweet it turned bitter.

“No-- know word _book_ , yeesh-- Potter is like _eye exam_.”

“I’m-- _huh_?”

“Some letters _big_ \-- very easy to see and repeat! No problem! Others _can_ be seen, just have to squint, get closer. But all there! All of Potter is see-able.”

“Oh.” Theo looked at Boris with an uncertain expression-- was he _supposed_ to feel like crying? “G-Good to know.”

“Let’s take those Big E moments, as you call them, and expand them a little, shall we? Make it easier for you both. Boris, so you can hear these affirmations, and Theo so you can grow more comfortable being vulnerable around Boris.” Theo blinked at Allison and let her have the rewarding silence of forfeit. “Great! Okay, Theo, I want you to tell me something you like about Boris.”

“Something I like?” The list was both endless and non-existent. There were no individual things, because they were all part of the same man and same tangled history.

“Is hard to think of one?” Boris teased, squeezing Theo’s forearm. “Eh, understandable. Am unlikable man.”

“Fuck off.” Theo said with a short laugh. “I didn’t say that.”

“Said nothing! Do not like anything!” Boris very clearly wasn't having Allison's rules about _listening,_ but instead wanted to continue diffusing Theo's bubbling and boiling tension.

“Well, his incessant talking isn’t it.” Theo said offhandedly to Allison. She was already writing. Was she timing him? Taking notice to how long it took Theo to even gather a fragment of a liked trait of Boris’s. It was an impossible task.

Theo thought back to that morning, getting ready before leaving for errands and coming to Allison’s East Village office. The apartment windows were open from the night before and a cool summer breeze was cutting through their bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. Theo woke up in bed alone, the bedroom door open and Boris heard clattering in the kitchen--

“He sings.”

“Okay. Tell me more about that.”

“I think it’s a nursery rhyme or something? I’m not sure-- it’s not in English. But he sings it all the time. When he’s making tea and when he’s brushing his teeth.” Theo nodded, conjuring the swaying figure of Boris by the sink, humming and bumping his foot against Theo’s. “You always sing that song, actually.” There was a hanging feeling of apprehension loitering after Theo’s words. He shifted quickly and used his angle to catch the clock: they still had forty-five minutes. “Well, that or you’re always singing the Jeopardy theme.”

Every night they were home together, they sat and drunkenly competed along with the weekly game show. Neither ever really _won_ , but Boris always got a giggled rise out of humming the short tune while Theo told him to _shut up and let him think_.

Most nights, Theo never remembered what the clue _or_ answer was; Boris climbing over him on the couch and quieting his buzzed bickering. Sometimes Theo picked a fight just so Boris would think he had to shut him up. Hearing the theme, either from the TV or from Boris, always reminded Theo of the calm hours between the end of his workday and the forced hours of sleep before his new one. Those hours were always ones with-- and _for_ \-- Boris.

“Why do you like that Boris sings?”

“Are you serious?” Theo said with a groan. “I don’t know! Why does anyone like anything? I just _do_.”

“But there must be something about it. I want you to access that feeling-- it’s okay to come close to those emotions.” Allison was just bullying Theo by that point. Her co-pay was starting to make Theo feel ridiculous.

“It’s better than silence.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know-- I just fucking think it’s nice! It reminds me of being in my old apartment and being in a regular house. Regular people sing when they do stuff.”

“Do you sing, Theo?”

_Bitch_. “No. I don’t.”

“Hm. And why do you think that is?” She had her pen ready. “Do you think it’s okay for Boris to participate in those happy family rituals, but you have to be on the outside? Watch and observe?”

Theo furrowed his eyebrows. “What? N-No. I just like listening. I’m not a singer, and honestly _neither_ is Boris-- are you serious right now? Not _everything_ has to do with the fact that I was a fucking orphan.”

“Was?”

“Oh my _god_.” Theo groaned, slamming his hands against his armrest. “Yes. _Was_. I _am_ abstracting or distancing or _whatever_ you’re about to say! Because I’m _not_ an orphan anymore. I belong somewhere. I have a life and an apartment and a job and a new family and-- and I have Boris.”

Allison placed her pen down. “You belong?” Her smile felt like a participation trophy. Theo regretted ever opening his mouth.

“Yes.” He gritted. “That’s what happens when you turn eighteen and get a bachelors-- and bills to pay.”

“No, that’s responsibility and societal adulthood. Belonging is a calling-- almost a choice. You think you belong where you are?”

“Are you being incredulous?”

“Are you being honest?”

Theo leaned back in his chair, sliding down and his posture falling. Boris was watching him quietly, Theo wishing he’d start talking-- and never stop.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care at least a _little_ bit.”

“She asked about place.” Boris spoke quietly, only to Theo.

Theo was alarmed to find that Boris wasn’t just watching Theo to follow the conversation, but was waiting for an answer. Boris had been wondering the same thing too. It had been a letter Theo never let anyone read. He never showed his roots. Truthfully, Theo didn’t think he ever had to; they were shallow and reaching up to tangle around the ankles of the man staring at him.

“You are asked if you think you belong in this life-- with all that has happened to you. You would do it again?” Boris said.

“I--I don’t think that’s the question here.”

Boris retracted. “You wouldn’t?”

Theo sputtered, looking at Allison in a defensive plea to _look away_ , before turning in toward Boris again. “Boris, are you asking me if I’d like to kill my mom again? Just so I could be shipped off to live with my dad-- and end up in the same neighborhood as you?”

The sickening and vile reality was _of course_ _Theo would_. He’d moved past hoping he could un-detonate that bomb and bring back his mother with his old life. Theo had conformed so closely to the expectations of the eyes around him back then, the bomb was the only thing to crack the shell and give just the tiniest sliver of sunlight-- let him see the moon fully for the first time. If he went back, there might have never been a crack or a moment of escape. Theo might’ve swallowed his own personal ticking bomb, waiting for it to go off but praying he’d be able to muffle it forever.

Theo had been mostly silent in this life as it was, but in any other iteration there would be no chance to speak a word-- other than an involuntary _I do_ to a church full of socialite strangers with blindfolds around their eyes and congratulations sitting like a knife against Theo’s throat.

“I think that’s an unfair framing, Theo--”

“I would though.” Theo said. The softness of his voice cut Allison’s down at the knees. It was impossible to feel tall about the things Theo had spent decades crumpling into a spitball he could hock up at his own reflection, but as Allison’s face relaxed-- in _shock_ \-- Theo inhaled and let his shoulders roll back.

“Oh.” Boris blinked twice, as if re-calibrating. His reality had changed in some minute way with Theo’s answer; he really thought Theo would’ve resented their meeting because it was the light at the end of a tumultuous tunnel. “You would.”

“I would, Borya, yes. Of course.”

There was very little Theo could control in his life, he was finding. Being confident and settled in the small notch the world had placed him was all he had. Boris was all he had, continuously and habitually. Fully and without any remorse.

Allison cleared her throat. Theo had _nearly_ forgotten she was there. “You called him ‘Borya’.”

“ _That’s_ what you fucking got out of that? We just turned into a Hallmark movie and you noticed what I _called_ him?” Theo snapped, setting his jaw and turning in his chair. “What the fuck do I _pay_ you for?”

Allison acted as if Theo had merely nodded. “You followed my exercise. You called him something other than his name--”

“That _is_ his name.”

“Who else calls him that?” She folded her hands over her notepad. “Would you be okay if I called him that?”

The answer was so painfully _no_ , but Theo also knew the trap that was being laid. “Why don’t you ask him yourself.” Theo opened his hands, palm up, and turned toward Boris.

“Me?” Boris was still stalled by Theo’s statement. He picked at his fingernails as he tried to backlog what was being asked of him. “Uh, asking about my name?”

“Yeah, Boris, she wants to call you Borya.”

“Ack, _tochno net_.”

“I’m sorry. I’m going to need you to repeat that for me.” Allison laughed nervously. Her eyes darting to Theo as he laughed freely at her expense.

“I said _fuck no_.” Boris elaborated, leaning forward. “Borya is not for everyone to use-- especially not woman who talks to me like _glupyy rebenok_. Only Potter uses ‘Borya’ when he wants me to listen-- or _trakhat''_ ”

Theo had never been more thankful for a language barrier.

“It is something private between you? You think of it as a symbol of your relationship?”

“Did you miss the part where we said it’s his _name_?” Theo cut in again. “I’m sorry, because I really don’t think you’re getting that part. I’m not… calling him _baby doll_. I’m calling him by his name. Just, in a different way.”

“Do you not answer to ‘Potter’ as if it’s _your_ first name?” Allison looked smug—Theo wasn’t sure if therapists were allowed to. Anything was an excuse to leave at that point.

“It’s Boris in Russian. It’s literally his name. Birth certificate and everything-- it’s his _government name_.”

“And you say it like it’s a nickname. You cradle the name, Theo.” She wasn’t being defensive-- wasn’t insisting she was right-- but spoke firmly. If any point had to get through to Theo, he supposed this could be her hill to die on. “ _That_ is your pet name for him. It’s just characteristically-- for you-- also his first name. You just chose it in his native language. A reach into a life you never had access to but want to honor. Perhaps, the mother you both never got to meet or grow to know--”

“Father is one who calls me Borya.” Boris said shortly. He folded his arms but let them rest on his lap. “Do not associate Potter’s _Borya_ with father. He never said it like Potter did. Potter says with love.”

Allison concealed her surprise well, at both Boris’s anger and the reveal of Boris’s awareness of Theo’s feelings. Theo wanted to laugh-- wished Boris had the warmth in his stoic and cold body language to allow a bubble of laughter too. It wasn’t that much of a surprise. Theo told Boris that morning.

_That_ was a Big E.

It had taken Theo nearly five years to string all the words together, but they were his favorite. No longer clunky or timid and empty. Theo knew that the full extent of how much he _loved_ and was _in love_ was tightly wrapped into those three, easy words. Uncomplicated and simple. Hell, he’d even gotten good enough to put those three words into a whole array of other words too:

_Please be safe today._

_Hey, you’ve had enough to drink tonight. Stop being an asshole and get in the car-- we’re going home._

_I think it’s going to rain, Borya. Better grab my umbrella from the closet._

_Are you hungry? I can make you something._

No one else had ever heard Theo say that he loved Boris though, let it be clear. Admitting that he loved Boris to other people felt like a betrayal of the entire commitment. When people heard Theo was _in love_ , there were immediate coos and softening heart eyes and people asking about _her_ and what _she_ was like. It was a casual, expected romance built on the delicacy of roses and laying coats over puddles. Those things were great-- and Theo could understand the appeal of gentle, genial love-- but that wasn’t what loving Boris was like.

Boris saved his life. Boris _was_ his life. Being in love wasn’t about finding some hidden emotion, unlocked by this random person that entered his life. For Theo, love was just what he was missing, and Boris reminded Theo it was in him the whole time, so ready to be accepted and given again after such a long time of thinking that the coldness inside him was death finally taking hold.

Love _was_ life, but how many people could possibly understand that?

Surely not _Allison_ , three degrees or not. Theo didn’t trust her to listen to him without trying to spin his resistance into a wall built up in the reconstruction of the art museum and compartmentalization of his trauma. Some things weren’t meant to be broken down and built again; some things just _were_.

And at the same token, some things also just _weren’t_. And, unfortunately, that was what going to Allison was _for._

Handling affirmations and half-deadly coping mechanisms was easy for Theo and Boris. It was the slow acceptance of how things were different because of things that had been done to them that was the hard part. It was easier to act like they never happened-- that Theo had just forgotten his mother’s phone number, that Boris had limited motion in his one arm from sleeping on it weird the night previous, that they both knew what fresh, pooling blood smelled like because they tried to go to medical school…

Allison never _let them_ forget though. Fucking bitch; good at her job.

“So Borya is a name between the two of you.” She affirmed. “It’s sacred.”

“Yes, so stop fucking saying it.” Theo said quietly, nudging Boris and hoping he’d laugh. Not yet.

“There’s a lot to think about today, guys, I have to say.” She leaned back in her chair, pleased with herself. “Theo, that’s a very big shift. You should be proud of yourself.”

“You twisted my arm.”

“I didn’t pick your words though.” She was _so_ fucking pleased with herself. “You chose those words yourself. As you do every week.”

“Okay, are you happy with your notes? Are you pleased? Can file me under: _cured_?” Theo uncrossed his legs before crossing them in the opposite order. “I told Boris, uh… everything. My whole deal. Even though I live with him.”

“What does living with him have to do with anything?” Allison spoke gently, like she was pulling away from a mine and letting Theo trip directly into it. “Sharing rent is hardly a love confession.”

“You know what I mean--”

“I don’t.”

Theo inhaled sharply. “What do you _want_ me to say? Come out every five minutes?” Theo suddenly felt flushed, sweating under his shirt and practically down his side. He tensed his arms under his suit jacket, seeing if he could see himself through the torn disguise. Allison had grabbed it the moment he sat down and was slowly letting the guilt in Theo’s stomach weigh him down, tearing it further and further. “I told you I like how my best friend sings and that I care about him—I think that’s enough for one day.”

“You think those things make you… what?” Allison prompted. “Less—how would you put it—passably _straight_?”

“Is that trick question?” Boris said, twisted his bracelet all the way around his wrist. “Is sticky on purpose, yes?”

Theo lowered his head to speak nearly into Boris’s shoulder—where he would’ve liked to rest his head for the moment. “What’s she’s asking is if I think saying those things—out loud to this random person— is a bad thing. What she wants is for me to say _yes_ and then have some epiphany and fix myself.”

“Now, Theo--”

“But what she hasn’t considered is just because I told you,” Theo was barely making any noise, nearly just breathing in a sentence shaped pattern. “t-that I’m gay and I told you about listening to you sing and called you by your name doesn’t mean I’m not… _afraid_ of anything anymore. That I’ve survived this long only to be killed by—” The discomfort of crying hit Theo like another knife to his system. Boris placed his hand on Theo’s knee, and it only made Theo feel worse. His bottom lip quivered again and he forced the slickness out of his throat and mouth.

“Potter? What is doing the scaring?”

“I have survived a bombing, jumping off my roof and not _splatting_ on cement, drugs of _every_ kind, horrendous liver damage, neglect, traveling across the country alone and as a minor… and someone could just as easily kill me—kill us—at any second. I keep wondering how we lived through Las Vegas, how we got out, and I can’t shake the feeling it was so we could just be killed here. Over this.”

“Over the singing and the names?” Boris looked infuriated, but looked intently a Theo, wanting to know where to direct his outrage with the world.

“I tell anyone other than you and it’s a weapon, right? It gets away from us. Our bird lost to the world again, you know?” Theo wasn’t crying. He refused to acknowledge he’d shed a single tear, that he’d betrayed his own stern refusal to participate in the office’s “catharsis effect” and begun quietly weeping under the eyes of his best friend. “Bet that’s not in your notes.” Theo turned to look at the other set of eyes on him, hoping to scare them away. “Bet that’s not in your decoding key of my psyche, huh. You figure that one out all on your own? Or did I give the answer away.” Theo said, pushing himself up from his chair. Boris’s hands flopped down onto his lap, limp and shocked. “Fuck you and your social work.”

Theo didn’t bother to listen to the attempt at calm and collected coaxing as Allison called after him. He opened the door to her office and started down the slightly jagged, zig-zag hallway past the _only_ nice person in the entire building—the person at the front desk area who always called Theo “Teddy” for some reason—and out onto the sidewalk. The oppressive summer heat caught up with him _immediately_ after sitting and sweating in an overly air-conditioned room for the afternoon.

The only place to sit was a shadeless bench on the other side of the street. Theo swung around the lamppost and swerved between two parked cars and marched over to it. He sat and smoothed his tie again. Theo been doing it for a lost number of minutes, and barely heard Boris come up to him.

“Potter, made quite an exit, yes? Are very upset.”

“I’ll be fine.” Theo waited for Boris to sit—but realized he was waiting for Theo to grant him the permission. Theo patted the space and moved over more. “I’m just—I’m fine.”

“Okay. Will not talk then.” It wasn’t martyrdom or pettiness; Boris knew there was nothing to convince or coax out of Theo if he wasn’t going to acknowledge anything there in the first place.

“I fucking hate talking to her.” Theo said finally, sitting up rigidly. He resisted crossing his legs. “Why did we even _think_ to go to a fucking _shrink_.”

“You listened to Miss Pippa.”

Theo groaned. “I have to stop doing that. It won’t get me anything.”

“Have been telling you this! She has hypnosis over you—is very smart woman, yes, but doesn’t know you through and through, Potter. She is wrong about telling you to see Doctor. Are just nightmares—have handled before and can continue to handle _just_ fine.” Boris waved the concern away as if he wasn’t also at risk to be woken up in the middle of night by Theo thrashing around and suddenly screaming. That, apparently, was _handling things_.

What else did they have back then-- and now? Every day they spent in the desert stunted them, letting them wilt back into the small children they were so afraid of losing grip with—only to leap out of the sun and into the dark shadows of the city and realize they were never children to begin with. And now that child wanted to haunt Theo, wanted to shake him awake in the middle of the night and remind him that everything he thought he’d outrun was sitting dormant and patient, tick tick ticking away.

Theo never brought that child to sessions with Allison though. He wouldn’t allow him to be spoken to in such a way; guided out and then shown, with an open-palmed flourish, all the destruction Theo had done in his absence, his death. That child didn’t need to hear Theo try and attempt to admit he was gay for the first time with such a poisonous and unfamiliar tongue.

That child had already tried before, alone in his room, while his mother stood screaming in the other room at the other parent that would never hear the attempted midnight confessional.

Boris was considerately keeping his distance, leaning against the arm rest of the bench and angling toward Theo. He wasn’t smiling, but upholding his usual mutely pleasant expression: eyebrows lifted enough to stave off any thought of discomfort; eyes wild and bright; and lips parted in his own in-motion silence.

It was disgusting and obvious to stare at Boris’s mouth, but what else was new with Theo? He couldn’t help it.

Yes, seeing Boris’s new teeth meant the worst had come to an end. But Theo also fostered the worrying thought Boris’s younger self didn’t live with them the same way Theo had to keep watch over his own. The haunting was singular and private, endless and self-inflicted.

In his nightmares, young Boris always had perfect teeth.

“Used to sing back in Vegas, too.” Boris said offhandedly. Theo was startled less by the sound and more by his view being disrupted.

“What?”

“When you were weepy drunk, laying in street or flopped down on bed. Arms out and refusing to let me lay down too— _Boris, am so sad! Want to die feel like am going to die!_ — big weeping mess, yes. Only way to get you to quiet down sometimes was song. Try to teach it to you, ask you to help me finish words—Used to sing it all the time to you.”

Theo blinked. “I don’t remember that.”

“I know this. Is still nice to know you like it, even when not drunk and angry and weepy!” Boris reached over and wound up to clap Theo on the back. It was like he was trying to dislodge something from Theo’s lungs.

Theo let the touch rattle him for a minute, let it radiate in him. He blinked and felt a laugh escape from him—nearly just an exhale.

“She wanted me to call you _pookie_.”

“Ack! Do not look like a _pookie_! Do not even know what that is!” Boris scoffed like he was trying to clear his throat of debris, finishing Theo’s cough.

“Now, you could get away with _sugar_ … Maybe.” Theo continued, as if genuinely pondering the possibility. “Three Sugars Pavlikovsky.”

Boris muttered the name before shaking it head, it souring in his mouth. “No! No, doesn’t sound the same. Borya always comforts—Borya is kind.”

Outside of Allison’s office, approaching the subject felt purposefully jarring. Like flashing a knife. “It doesn’t… _bother_ you, right? That I call you that? That I don’t… practice vulnerable emotion vomiting or whatever?” Theo said.

Boris scoffed again, bracing his hands on his knees to stand. “Do not be so ridiculous, Potter. If had issue with way you treated me, would be known, yes?”

“Okay.” Theo tried to nod without seeming to pleased by the upfront assurance. “Good to know.”

Boris stood in front of Theo, cutting out the sun from shining in his eyes. The back lighting shadowed and hid some of his features, even in the close distance. The inverted darkness placed a familiar veil over him. A younger light was far more visible as Theo looked up at Boris. Theo recognized Boris—the two younger versions of themselves squinting up at the same sun and groaning through the same headache.

“Want to go home?” Theo said, scrunching his nose up as he closed his one eye completely. “I think I’ve had enough ‘being in the open’ today. Hobie gave me the whole day off. I foresee an entire afternoon of just laying on the couch.”

“Want me to call cab?”

“No. No, I think we should walk.” Theo stood and fixed his tie only once. “I think the sun would be good for us.”

“Says who?”

Theo wasn’t sure if the younger version of himself—that cold and shivering child—counted as _anyone_. If it was someone who could think and participate and stand in the breathable heat of the afternoon, and want the warmth of freedom with the only other child it saw. The one standing beside him and stepping in those same heavy shoes but with a far different smile—at least still pointed at him.

“Me—I do. I think we should.”

“Cannot argue with him, then!” Boris slung his arm around Theo’s shoulders—platonic (enough) and in good nature. “ _Will_ not argue with him. Is new man today.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Theo adjusted his slumped shoulders to rest more comfortably under Boris’s arm. “I think I’ve been the same since you’ve met me.” If Theo had a static existence to anyone, it would’ve been Boris.

“No, this Potter is different.” Boris clapped Theo on the chest with his other hand. “Has difference about him. Different than when were kids.”

“How can you tell?”

“Have eyes, no?” Boris said, turning and quirking an eyebrow.

Theo had to trust the dark, pointed eyes looking at him that they weren’t just observing Theo as he was on the sidewalk; that they were seeing some essential part of Theo that he’d lost in himself as well. He had to trust that there was something to Boris that very easily coaxed the child out of him and out into the sun. That there something to Boris that would and always had found the good parts worth encouraging, getting to outlast the dark eclipse of suffering.

Theo had to trust there was something in Boris that could save, just as he had to believe there was something in himself worth saving.

And, well, there was just no way Allison could do _that_.


End file.
